The Human Factor
At a Search
Engine Strategies conference in Boston years ago, I dutifully
spent two days learning how to manipulate content, stuff keywords
into Meta tags and file names, then link my way into the number
one position of a search results page. But those “tips
and tricks” didn’t seem to address the human factor
-- how the user searches for information, and the
motivation behind the user’s search for information.
Indeed, my professional experience and my years at the Faculty
of Information Studies have taught me that user satisfaction
is about accurate, accessible and contextual information. Manipulating
the code or tricking the search engine crawlers felt akin to
tricking the user, and compromising the integrity of the user
experience is just the wrong thing to do.
Fortunately, we are seeing less of this trend and a shift to a new “usable SEO” mentality as first seen in 2005’s SES session in Toronto. This user-centered approach to organic search first looks at the human who is using the search engine results page before the search engine crawler indexing of website content.
Embracing the Love Child of Usability and Organic Search
Practitioners of organic search tactics are beginning to realize
the value of creating SEO pages that are highly usable for
humans first and then for search crawlers. Holistic web strategies
couple the disciplines of usability and search
engine optimization at the beginning of the project lifecycle
and companies win because we no longer graft on usability or
organic search strategy as an afterthought once a website has
been built. Real user-centred SEO happens before any code is
written or creative design concepts are imagined.
Any effective web strategy commands that we assess how search engine crawlers will view a website and in much the same way that we would conduct user testing on a web interface to determine how a customer views it. It’s not good enough to optimize for organic search in the copy or code after it is written. Similarly, we can’t conduct usability testing a week before the launch of a new web product and expect to feel the same results as usability that had been part of the strategy and planning process.
Usable SEO gives Users what they need
Usable search results are what users really want in the search
engine experience so give it to them! When anyone wants to
know what something is about, they question it’s “aboutness ”.
Users want to know a site’s “aboutness1” before
they click and these user-centred SEO best practices can help
you drive out the aboutness of your site:
- Title Tag – Context is Everything.
Answer “what is this website about?” This information is of the *greatest* importance to search engine crawlers.
- Meta Description Tag – the web page Elevator Pitch
The best elevator pitches get your message across in the 25 seconds it takes to ride up or down -- description tags describe the aboutness of the content on each page.
- The Site Map – For Humans and Crawlers
Showing humans all the available content of your website covers all bases and offers every page in your website to search engine crawler links and indexes.
1 Beghtol, C. (1986). Bibliographic Classification Theory and Text Linguistics: Aboutness Analysis, Intertextuality and the Cognitive Act of Classifying Documents. Journal of Documentation, 42, 84-113.
Quick Tips for Improving Search Engine Optimization Usability
Search engine indexes reward websites that employ good user-centered
practices by placing them high on search results page. Here are
five tips to increase SEO usability:
- A brief, descriptive and unique title tag on each page will
provide users with a compelling reason to click on the link
and help manage users' expectations when they do.
- In addition to the title tag, a keyword rich description
meta tag for the summary area on the search engine results
page works best with Google's model -- Google only uses the
first 150 characters, including commas, accents and other punctuation.
- A Robots Meta Tag for each page enables the search engine
crawlers to follow the links in that page and include the page
in the search index.
- Website copy and title and Meta Tags that use specific terms
instead of general ones will give users a more useful (contextualized)
search result.
- A site map page can act as a catch all and table of content for users -- if a user performing a keyword search ends up on your site map page, s/he is only one click away from every page on your website.
About Jane
Jane Motz Hayes is an Information Designer at WebFeat Multimedia
Inc. During her career, she has diligently worked to create highly
useable interfaces, experiences and search engine results for
some of Canada’s most notable brands.
To learn more about how WebFeat can maximize your company’s ROI and generate awareness for your brand, contact WebFeat’s VP Client Service, David Zbar at dzbar@webfeat.com
